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Research Project InNOSys

Integrated sustainability assessment and optimization of energy systems

Duration:
January 2018 until December 2020

Funded by:
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi)

Project Participants:
INATECH (Uni Freiburg)
INEC (Hochschule Pforzheim)
ZIRIUS (Uni Stuttgart)
ITAS (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie - KIT)
GWS

Project Manager at the Institute of Networked Energy Systems:
Dr. Tobias Naegler

Project Description:
The political debate on the sustainable transformation of the energy system often focusses on the aspects of climate protection and associated expenses for private households and the industry. Other aspects such as resource demand, social acceptance or life cycle emissions of pollutants are often neglected. However, the national strategy of the German Government has to consider these issues as well in order to develop and implement political measures to foster a transformation towards a sustainable energy system.

The main objective of the project InNOSys is the development of a new generic modelling and assessment approach for energy scenarios which allows a multicriteria assessment and optimisation of technically and structurally feasible development pathways of the energy system in Germany. Assessment criteria include economic, ecologic and social indicators.

The project partners DLR, GWS, INATECH, INEC, ITAS, and ZIRIUS pursue the following aims:

• Development of an interdisciplinary, integrated method for the sustainability assessment of transformation scenarios for the (German) energy system. Economic, ecologic and social aspects will be taken into account through a coupling of models, methods and competences of the project partners.
• Analysis and comparative sustainability assessment of a spectrum of relevant transformation scenarios for Germany 
• Optimisation of capacity expansion in the power sector under consideration of ecological, economic and social sustainability aspects
• Identification and analysis of conflicting goals and trade-offs between different sustainability indicators which will occur during the transformation process 
• Formulation of conclusions for energy policy and society with respect to alternative courses of action

The project consortium combines a broad-ranging knowledge with respect to the ongoing discussion on sustainability, on energy system modelling and optimisation, on Life Cycle Assessment, assessment of macroeconomic effects of transformation processes as well as social science oriented research with respect to participation and social acceptance to an integrated concept for the sustainability assessment of energy transformation scenarios in Germany.

Central objectives of the DLR are:

• Coupling of the optimisation model REMix and the scenario development tool MESAP/PlaNet with Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data bases and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools
• Automated adaption of LCI data to technical assumptions in the scenarios in order to allow a consistent assessment of ecologic impacts of the scenarios
• Assessment of the ecologic impacts of transformation scenarios which describe structurally different pathways towards Germany’s climate protection goals
• Optimisation of capacity expansion in the power sector under consideration of sustainability aspects